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Prose Studies
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George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier: an
experimental ethnographic study with a novelist’s
touch

Kristy Liles Crawley

To cite this article: Kristy Liles Crawley (2016) George Orwell’s The�Road�to�Wigan�Pier: an
experimental ethnographic study with a novelist’s touch, Prose Studies, 38:2, 137-151, DOI:
10.1080/01440357.2016.1212508

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Prose studies, 2016
VoL. 38, No. 2, 137–151
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01440357.2016.1212508

George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier: an experimental
ethnographic study with a novelist’s touch

Kristy Liles Crawley

english department, university of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, usA

ABSTRACT
Although numerous critics identify The Road to Wigan Pier as
George Orwell’s flawed depiction of working class life, Orwell’s
memoir paints a picture of early ethnographic techniques
in twentieth century England. This essay examines Orwell’s
fieldworking process in terms of gaining access, representing
informants, representing the self, and giving back to the
community. In the essay, I acknowledge the flaws in Orwell’s
fieldworking process while arguing that The Road to Wigan
Pier should be labeled as an experimental ethnographic study.
What readers consider flaws are in fact Orwell’s early attempts
in experimenting and refining his fieldworking process, a
process influenced by his work as a novelist. As a novelist and
ethnographer, Orwell creates an intriguing vehicle for social
change, for his vivid descriptions capture readers’ interest
while the text calls attention to the working class’s living
conditions.

Richard Hoggart’s “George Orwell and The Road to Wigan Pier” opens with the
following statements: “The Road to Wigan Pier has been disliked by almost all
commentators on Orwell. Tom Hopkinson calls it his worst book and Laurence
Brander ‘his most disappointing performance’” (72). Likewise, other critics have
voiced similar complaints about The Road to Wigan Pier and questioned its useful-
ness. In his abstract accompanying “Revisiting Orwell’s Wigan Pier,” Robert Pearce
recognizes that “George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) has long been con-
sidered an important semi-documentary source for living and working conditions
in the north-west of England during the 1930s. Yet exactly how important – and
how accurate and useful – the book is has never been determined” (410). For the
purposes of this paper, I would like to respond to Pearce’s question concerning
the usefulness of Orwell’s text. In the sections that follow, I will examine Orwell’s
approach to fieldworking and to writing an ethnographic text.

© 2016 informa uK Limited, trading as taylor & Francis Group

KEYWORDS
George orwell; The Road to
Wigan Pier; ethnography;
experimental nonfiction;
fieldworking; ethnographic
study

CONTACT Kristy Liles Crawley kcrawley@forsythtech.edu

mailto:kcrawley@forsythtech.edu

138 K. L. CrAWLEy

Prior to discussing Orwell’s fieldworking process, it is worthwhile to ask whether
Orwell set out to write an ethnographic text. At the request of the Left Book Club,
Orwell wrote The Road to Wigan Pier. The Left Book Club editors simply desired
a “documentary report on the conditions among the unemployed in the north
of England” (Publisher’s Note vii). Despite the request of a documentary report,
Orwell struggled to decide how to arrange the work. After visiting the north of
England for one month, he informed Sir Richard Rees, a close friend, that “he had
no clear idea of how to use the material he had gathered. At one point he even
thought of taking his notes and statistics and producing a book of essays about
what unemployment does to the working classes” (Rodden and Rossi 52–3). His
idea of producing a book of essays soon disappeared, however, as his thoughts
turned to ethnography. According to Patricia Rae, Orwell’s exchanges with a social
anthropologist and an ethnographer may have influenced the shape of his work:

While writing up his field-notes from Wigan during 1936 and 1937, Orwell corre-
sponded with at least two participants in, and advocates of, the effort to import the
ethnographic techniques deployed abroad. One was the social anthropologist Geoffrey
Gorer, an associate of Harrisson’s who, as Orwell reminds him in a May 1936 letter,
had recently written of the importance of “studying our own customs from an anthro-
pological point of view.” The other was James Hanley, proletarian novelist turned eth-
nographer, and author of a 1937 study of the life of a Welsh mining community, Grey
Children. (77)

Orwell’s correspondence with Gorer reveals that in the 1930s ethnographic tech-
niques were new to England. As I will discuss later in this essay, the flaws in Orwell’s
fieldworking process and representations of the working class are considered flaws
by today’s standards for conducting fieldwork and writing ethnographic stud-
ies. Therefore, it is worthwhile to label The Road to Wigan Pier an experimental
ethnography.

Likewise, Orwell’s interactions with Hanley, a novelist and ethnographer, may
have inspired him to transform his notes into an ethnographic study. As stated
above, Orwell’s correspondence with Hanley took place between 1936 and 1937
(Rae 77). The timeline for Orwell’s exchanges with Hanley align with the dates of
the composition and publication of Hanley’s ethnographic study Grey Children:
A Study in Humbug and Misery. Grey Children and The Road to Wigan Pier, both
published in 1937, contain many similarities. Although Hanley dedicates a portion
of his book to describing suffering children’s struggles and education in mining
towns, Hanley, like Orwell, concentrates on miners, unemployment, and poor liv-
ing conditions within mining communities. In addition to having a similar focus
in subject matter, their ethnographic works contain a novelist’s touch.

With Hanley and Orwell being novelists and beginning ethnographers, it is
not surprising that novelistic techniques appear in their writings. In the following
sections on fieldworking and representation of others, I discuss the choices Orwell
makes as a novelist in terms of his use of imagery and embellishment. However,
at this point, I want to address similar novelistic features of Hanley’s and Orwell’s

PrOsE sTudIEs 139

work. Hanley and Orwell serve as narrators or guides as readers see the mining
towns through their eyes. In the midst of their observations and dialogue with
informants, they sprinkle similes and metaphors in their writing, but most impor-
tantly they tug on readers’ heartstrings with vivid descriptions. Hanley employs
pathos in his description of children: “The child is voiceless; it can make no protest
against anything; it relies entirely upon its elders for everything. It lives in the
most appalling surroundings without understanding their significance; it often
goes to school with little breakfast …” (171). The anaphora of each line illustrated
with the repetition of “it” contributes to painting a picture of the nameless and
voiceless children suffering in silence. Similarly, Orwell utilizes pathos as he calls
attention to readers’ ignorance of what is involved in the process of moving coal
from mine to home: “There are still living a few very old women who in their
youth have worked underground, with a harness round their legs, crawling on all
fours and dragging tubs of coal. They used to go on doing this even when they
were pregnant. And even now, if coal could not be produced without pregnant
women dragging it to and fro, I fancy we should let them do it rather than deprive
ourselves of coal” (Orwell, The Road 34). Like the children in Hanley’s description,
the laboring pregnant women in Orwell’s description tug at readers’ hearts, for
they suffer along with their unborn children anonymously in silence while coal
consumers remain oblivious to their labor and existence.

Moreover, in acting as narrators or guides, Orwell’s and Hanley’s narration
resembles editorial omniscience present in novels. Obviously, Orwell and Hanley
do not take on the role of omniscient narrators, but they do offer the occasional
comment or opinion similar to that of narration involving editorial omniscience.
Comments or opinions surface as interruptions in the narration as the narra-
tor judges or interprets informants’ actions. For instance, Hanley interrupts his
description of the miners’ conversation to insert his opinion: “To hear some of
the men arguing about Spain, one might assume that South Wales did not exist
at all, and not all their reasoning is rooted in realities” (168). Hanley does not
simply describe the conversation or events happening around him. He reacts. He
cannot believe that the men are not concerned about the poverty surrounding
them. Why are they concerned with problems in Spain? What about the problems
of South Wales? He judges them for their lack of priorities and failure to discuss
the problems and possible solutions relevant to their own lives.

Correspondingly, Orwell frequently judges the actions of his informants. After
staying at the Brookers’ lodging house and observing the uncleanliness of full
chamber pots and Mrs. Brooker’s personal habits, Orwell arrives at a boiling point:
“In the end Mrs. Brooker’s self-pitying talk – always the same complaints, over and
over … revolted me even more than her habit of wiping her mouth with bits of
newspaper” (The Road 17). At this point, Orwell is no longer an observer recording
the events and speech of his informants. He informs readers of his revulsion and
contempt for Mrs. Brooker and the Brookers’ living conditions which eventually
prompt him to leave the house.

140 K. L. CrAWLEy

After pointing out the connections between Orwell and Hanley, it is worthwhile
to mention unknown connections between Orwell and ethnographers of his time.
While few sources exist that state Orwell was directly influenced by specific writ-
ers, it is worth noting that some ethnographies existed during the 1930s that could
have influenced his approach to conducting an ethnographic study and prompted
him to focus on miners. In fact, Hanley’s Grey Children opens with a quote from
a miner who is tired of being observed: “We’re about fed up with people coming
down here looking us over as though we were animals in a zoo. Put that in the
headlines for a change” (1). The miner’s attitude indicates Orwell is not the only
one observing and gathering information about mining towns. In fact, Jack Hilton,
author and National Unemployed Workers’ Movement activist, advised Orwell
to “abandon his plan to ‘write about milltown folk’ in Rochdale and focus instead
on Wigan, ‘for there are the colliers and they’re good stuff ’” (Clarke 2). Although
Hilton did not approve of Orwell’s finished product, he served as a peer advisor
during the planning stages of the work. Because Hilton is one of many working
class authors that are being recovered, it is possible that other unknown authors
may have influenced Orwell’s work.

As scholars add to the list of working class authors and ethnographers, more con-
nections can be made in the future. However, given that ethnography is in its infancy
in the 1930s, I do not claim that Orwell’s work is inspired by a long line of ethnog-
raphers before him. Yet the existence of other ethnographies at the time such as A.
Fenner Brockway’s Hungry England published in 1932, five years before the publication
of The Road to Wigan Pier, was available for Orwell to read. Although Brockway’s
work focuses on hunger and textile towns, his approach to ethnography serves as an
early example that potentially guided future ethnographers’ approach to conducting
ethnographic studies. In fact, on the cover of Brockway’s work, he explicitly informs
readers of his approach: “This is a plain first-hand account (the result of personal
investigation, interviews, the examination of budgets, etc.) of how a large percentage
of the population is living.” Brockway’s combination of interviews resembles Orwell’s
interviews with miners and the research he conducts concerning miners’ salaries.
However, it remains unknown if Orwell read Brockway’s work as well as other studies
for inspiration. Given the limited number of ethnographic texts in the 1930s, Orwell
had room to experiment with a fluid genre that was not yet solidified with conven-
tions. In the following sections, I will examine Orwell’s fieldworking process in terms
of gaining access, representing informants, representing the self, and giving back to
the community. Following the fieldworking discussion, the essay concludes with a
discussion of the text’s overall contribution to ethnographic studies and its role in
promoting social change.

In this section, I employ Bonnie Stone Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater’s
definition of fieldworking: “[F]or an anthropologist ‘working in the field’ means

PrOsE sTudIEs 141

talking, listening, recording, observing, participating, and sometimes even living
in a particular place. The field is the site for doing research, and fieldworking is
the process of doing it” (1). Orwell’s project fulfills the aforementioned definition
of fieldworking, for he participates to a certain extent in working class life while
he listens to informants and records his observations. To begin the discussion of
Orwell’s process, it is worthwhile to discuss his entry into the field.

Orwell uses ethical means to gain entry into the working class culture. Unlike
his approach to learning about tramps’ lives in Down and Out in Paris and London,
Orwell does not wear a disguise or pretend to be a working class man. His inten-
tions are clear. “Richard Rees provided him with letters of introduction to vari-
ous Independent Labour Party contacts, and he was not left to fend for himself ”
(Hamilton 55). Through the letters of introduction, working class informants knew
Orwell’s true identity and the purpose for his visit. The letters offered the inform-
ants an opportunity to accept or decline the invitation to be part of Orwell’s study.

Although he gains access to the working class culture in an open manner, the
representation of his direct participation in working class culture is not accurately
depicted in The Road to Wigan Pier. In the work, Orwell appears to stay in various
working class dwellings for the duration of his project. Contrary to this belief,
Ian Hamilton states, “In Wigan, Orwell’s exposures of himself to the squalid and
uncomfortable were strictly utilitarian and at their worst they were as brief as he
could make them” (55). In between his visits to working class dwellings, he visited
more comfortable dwellings such as his sister’s home in Leeds in which “he evi-
dently enjoyed the ‘elbow room’ of the Dakins’ middle-class menage” (Hamilton
59). Similar to Hamilton’s observations, Robert Pearce acknowledges a discrepancy
between the actual time Orwell spends in the north and the time that he presents
in the book: “[H]e gave the general impression that he was there for much longer
than was actually the case: ‘For some months I lived in entirely in coal-miners’
houses.’ In fact, he stayed in the north of England from around 5 February to
26 March, and he was not staying in miners’ houses all that time” (417–8). The
discrepancies in time that Pearce and Hamilton recognize prompt the following
the questions: As readers, what are we to make of Orwell’s discrepancies in time?
How would the book have been different if Orwell had mentioned his brief visits
in working class homes and nonworking class dwellings? His choice to exaggerate
time and leave out details concerning nonworking class homes is a choice that he
made as a novelist instead of an ethnographer. Orwell knows what makes a good
story. As readers immerse themselves into the working class world, they would
not appreciate the interruption of the details concerning Orwell’s stay in a middle
class home. Also, Orwell’s decision to exaggerate the time spent in working class
homes suggests his concern for credibility as an ethnographer. He wants readers
to know that his knowledge about the working class comes from living amongst
the working class and participating in their culture.

Furthermore, it is worthwhile to consider Orwell’s approach to recording
observations and transferring them from his diary to his book. In each diary

142 K. L. CrAWLEy

entry, Orwell includes the date and a brief description of people, surroundings,
and events. Orwell’s entries contain a mixture of direct observation and personal
responses, which differs from some of the notetaking techniques that ethnogra-
phers use today. Today’s ethnographers often employ double-entry notetaking to
separate personal reactions from direct observations. For instance, the left side of
a double-entry notebook will include “direct observations – concrete, verifiable
details” and the right side will capture “personal reactions, opinions, feelings, and
questions about the data on the left side” (Chiseri-Strater and Sunstein 77). In light
of differences between present day ethnographers’ approaches to notetaking and
Orwell’s mix of personal reactions and direct observations, the book produced
from his diary entries contains subjective descriptions.

Orwell adds a novelist’s touch to the subjective descriptions made from direct
observations and personal responses when he weaves the information from the
diary entries into the book. For example, in the diary entry for the Brookers’
tripe shop, Orwell describes the crumbs on the table: “… and the cloth never
even removed from the kitchen table. At supper you still see the crumbs from
breakfast” (Orwell 45–6). Orwell further magnifies his description of the crumbs
in the book by describing the multiple layers of dirty newspaper and cloth before
describing the crumbs: “Generally the crumbs from breakfast were still on the
table at supper. I used to get to know individual crumbs by sight and watch their
progress up and down the table from day to day” (Orwell 7). In the diary, Orwell
briefly mentions the crumbs’ continuous presence on the table, but in the book
Orwell paints a vivid picture of his daily notations of the crumbs’ journey. The
crumbs’ journey appeals to the readers’ sense of humor and enlivens the mundane.
Pearce states, “This whole episode does seem fanciful, and indeed Orwell substan-
tially embroidered the much more sober account given in the Diary” (416). The
embroidery or embellishments open the text up for questions related to ethos.
Should accuracy to detail be compromised for the sake of entertainment? Does
Orwell appear to be making fun of the lower class by placing a humorous spin
on what he finds disturbing or distasteful? Do Orwell’s embellishments prevent
readers from viewing an accurate picture of working class households? I mention
these questions to point to the opportunity for scholars and students to engage
in-depth discussions on the rewards as well as the consequences of embellishing
descriptions.

The questions above can also be applied to the presentation of Orwell’s research
in The Road to Wigan Pier. As with any ethnographic study, it is not enough to
observe, participate, and record information about informants. Orwell’s encoun-
ters with a limited number of working class people could not possibly paint a
complete picture of working class life. Orwell adds to his knowledge and credibility
by gathering information about the working class through a variety of sources.
Peter Davison writes that “Orwell’s account of what he saw in the north of England
was supported by a considerable amount of research. He visited libraries in the
north, collected a mass of newspaper cuttings, wrote to local government officials,

PrOsE sTudIEs 143

read books, and visited the British Museum Library” (71). Despite his research,
scholars have noted inaccuracies, intentional or accidental, in the presentation
of his research findings. Davison mentions “Orwell’s arithmetic was often faulty
and a recalculation of the payments in the miners’ slips he collected shows that
he slightly exaggerated the amounts received by the miners (if anything, to the
detriment of his case)” (71). Again, Orwell’s inaccuracies prompt further question-
ing of the text and allow readers to think about ethics in relation to ethnography.
Although corrections were made in later editions of The Road to Wigan Pier, what
impact did the mistake have on miners? If Orwell intentionally altered the pay-
ments, did he increase the salary to highlight miners’ importance in working class
communities? What other information has Orwell altered in order to support his
arguments in the second half of the book? The aforementioned questions produce
fertile ground for discussions related to ethnographic honesty.

Ethnographers face challenges in depicting members of other cultures. In my dis-
cussion above on fieldworking, I mentioned the importance of separating direct
observations from personal responses. Blending personal reactions with direct
observations often leads to misrepresentation and encourages readers to share the
writer’s attitude towards the person or group. The use of judgmental words can
paint an idealistic picture of the working class by presenting “the quaint aspects
of working-class life” (Hoggart 16). On the other hand, writer’s descriptions of the
working class can take on a “part-pitying and part-patronising” attitude (Hoggart
17). In Orwell’s depiction of the miners, he takes on the former attitude.

In dedicating multiple chapters to describing the lives of miners, Orwell casts
the spotlight on miners while neglecting to include other types of workers such as
“cotton workers,” “workers in ‘pottery towns’,” and “iron and steel” workers (Clarke,
“Noble Bodies” 429). By focusing on the miners, Orwell portrays the lives of miners
as representative of the working class experience in general. He praises miners’
solidarity, but as Ben Clarke notes, mining communities are “closed structures. The
very practices and values that made mining communities cohesive excluded ‘out-
siders’, not least Orwell himself, a ‘degenerate modern semi-intellectual’ with ‘mid-
dle-class origins’” (“Noble Bodies” 428). Because of Orwell’s failure to acknowledge
the closed nature of mining communities, readers could easily assume that soli-
darity exists between the entire working class. With the assumption of solidarity
brought to the forefront, readers can conclude that working class individuals could
band together to produce change. However, in reality their solidarity extends only
to their own members and their “activism was often focused on specific issues,
particularly economic disputes” (Clarke, “Noble Bodies” 436). Unlike the limited
snapshot that Orwell provides of the miners, the miners’ isolation and limited
activism prevent them from serving as leaders for change.

144 K. L. CrAWLEy

Additionally, Orwell fails to include working women in his study of the working
class. Mrs. Brooker, an invalid; Emmie, the fiancée of Brookers’ son; and a nameless
woman, who is attempting to unclog a drain, are the only women that Orwell
describes in the book. Out of the three women, he briefly mentions Emmie’s role
as a mill worker, but he does not provide any additional details about women’s
work outside of the home. For the most part, “women are described as adjuncts,
housewives making do as best they can in appalling circumstances” (Davison 73).
By casting women in a supporting role, Orwell fails to depict their contributions
to the public sphere and to working class life in general. Overall, Orwell’s work
lacks the intersubjectivity that we find in today’s ethnographic studies in which
fieldworkers employ “the method of connecting as many different perspectives
on the same data as possible” (Chiseri-Strater and Sunstein 111).

Furthermore, Orwell’s depiction of the lower class does not always include
praise. His description of the Brookers and their lodgers displays his disgust.
Orwell frequently references animals in his depictions of the people in this “beastly
place” (The Road 5) which “stank like a ferret’s cage” (The Road 6). Examples of his
animalistic descriptions include phrases such as “derelict-looking, frankly ragged
creature” and “large pig-like young man” (Orwell 11). Orwell appears to have
good intentions when he recreates the sights, sounds, and smells of the working
class home for the reader. He states, “But it is no use saying that people like the
Brookers are just disgusting and trying to put them out of mind. For they exist in
tens and hundreds of thousands …” (The Road 17). By bringing to the forefront
that the Brookers are just one of many families who live in filth, Orwell successfully
tattoos the disgusting images of the Brookers and their lodgers from this chapter
onto the reader’s mind.

Despite Orwell’s good intentions in portraying both the miners and the
Brookers, one must ask whether Orwell showed his work to the individuals he
presented in it prior to its publication. More than likely he did not. Although most
of Orwell’s informants were illiterate, they still deserved to have the descriptions
pertaining to their lives read to them with the option of altering or removing
inaccuracies. Even after the book was published, informants in the north did not
receive copies of the book: “Whether between them Orwell and Eileen (who was
rushing to get to Spain) forgot people in the north, or whether Eileen had no
addresses for them, the failure to send copies to people Orwell had met there was
a regrettable oversight” (Davison 70). It is safe to say that many never saw their
published words because they could not afford to purchase a copy of the book.
Their knowledge of the Orwell’s work consisted of reports from those who had
read or heard about the book.

Predictably, numerous reports suggest that many readers were not pleased
with Orwell’s depiction of the working class. “Stephen Wadhams, in Remembering
Orwell, remarks correctly that not everyone in Wigan thanked Orwell for ‘making
the name Wigan synonymous with poverty and degradation’” (Davison 72). For
many, Orwell’s work tarnished the reputation of Wigan and its residents. Aside

PrOsE sTudIEs 145

from mining community families, Orwell’s focus on the Brookers created the
impression for many readers that all working class families are like the Brookers.
The disgusting smells in the Brookers’ home lives on in the reader’s mind and
singles out working class people. Davison recognizes that it is unfair to assume
that infrequent bathing applies to only the working class: “Unfortunately it is only
too true that not only the working class of that time, but most English people had
a reputation for washing infrequently” (73). By suggesting that the Brookers are
typical of their class, the published work leaves an ugly and unfair impression
that cannot easily be erased.

In the first and second parts of The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell acknowledges his
position within the study. Orwell’s admiration for the miners and their work comes
from his own position as an intellectual. He remarks, “I am not a manual labourer
and please God I never shall be one, but there are some kinds of manual work I
could do if I had to. At a pitch I could be a tolerable road-sweeper or an inefficient
gardener or even a tenth-rate farm hand” (Orwell 32). Orwell honestly admits his
privileged position in society and his lack of skill in physical tasks. His jobs have
never required him to engage in physical labor, so his admiration for the miners’
strong bodies appears evident in the text as he describes their “noble bodies” with
“wide shoulders tapering to slender supple waists, and small pronounced buttocks
and sinewy thighs, with not an ounce of waste flesh anywhere” (Orwell 23). His
admiration coupled with his extensive bodily descriptions initially suggests that
he finds the miners’ bodies attractive to the point of hero worship. The miners’
superior bodies force him to question his own superiority: “In a way it is even
humiliating to watch coal-miners working. It raises in you a momentary doubt
about your own status as an ‘intellectual’ and a superior person generally” (Orwell
34). Yet although Orwell recognizes that the miners have superior bodies, he uses
the word “momentary” to suggest that the feeling of inferiority is just temporary
(Orwell 34). In his mind, he is still an superior person overall, which illustrates that
despite the fact that he desires to help the working class, he still feels that they are
not his equals. He is an outsider who does not belong in the working class world.

Orwell reaffirms his position as an outsider by stating his class position: “I was
born into what you might describe as the lower-upper-middle class” (Orwell 121).
He then goes forward in unveiling how the definitions of class in British society
extend beyond money. Earlier in the first half of the book, he points out the priv-
ileges attached to his status: “Even when I am on the verge of starvation I have
certain rights attaching to my bourgeois status. I do not earn much more than a
miner earns, but I do at least get it paid into my bank in a gentlemanly manner
and can draw it out when I choose. Even when my account is exhausted the bank
people are still passably polite” (Orwell 49). Although his salary is slightly more
than a miner’s, he suggests that manners and education set him apart from the

146 K. L. CrAWLEy

working classes. Instead of spending money on clothing clubs or burial clubs, he
places a portion of his money in the bank. Because he is able to set aside just a
little money, he garners the respect shown in the bank employees’ politeness when
his account is empty.

In addition to his privilege and position, Orwell addresses his disgust for
imperialism and how it has motivated him to help the working classes. When he
worked as an officer for the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, Orwell witnessed
and participated in horrific events that haunted him: “Innumerable remembered
faces – faces of prisoners in the dock, of men waiting in the condemned cells, of
subordinates I had bullied and aged peasants I had snubbed, of servant and coolies
I had hit with my fist in moments of rage ….” (The Road 147). These haunting
images fueled Orwell’s growing frustration with oppression. He recalls, “I felt that
I had got to escape not merely from imperialism but from every form of man’s
dominion over man. I wanted to submerge myself, to get right down among the
oppressed, to be one of them and on their side against tyrants” (Orwell 148). To
relieve his guilt, he dedicates himself to studying lower class life and publishing a
book which draws attention to the lower class’s struggles and poverty. Interestingly
he reveals his own prejudice towards the Burmese when he fails to engage his
energies in helping the people that he has harmed. Instead he desires to help the
white working class people of England.

Despite Orwell’s attempts to honestly define his prejudices and position in
the text, scholars have often criticized the second half of the book. Pearce states
“that almost every commentator has subscribed to a basic consensus: the auto-
biographical part II of the book is considered to be highly prejudiced and mud-
dle-headed, needing to be treated with caution …” (411). Commentators’ distrust
of the second half of the book relates to Orwell’s ranting tone as he introduces
his long list of prejudices. Orwell’s directness and complete honesty shocks and
repulses readers. However, at the same time, his honesty adds to his credibility.
In response to commentators’ negative attitudes toward part two, Pearce defends
Orwell: “Yes, the views are unfair. Why should he dislike fruit-juice drinkers and
sandal-wearers, or even nudists and pacifists?” (412). Despite its unfair views,
Pearce admits, “Part II could have been written by no one else. It is a personal
statement, Orwell’s credo from 1936. To argue that he should not have had such
views is beside the point. His opinions may be infuriating, but they were his and
he voiced them with characteristic fearlessness” (413). While Orwell’s views were
not popular, the second half of the book provided readers with descriptions of
his political views in terms of what he sees as the shortcomings in Socialism’s
spokespeople as well as his own ideas for the middle and working classes working
together to stop Fascism.

PrOsE sTudIEs 147

Ethnography involves giving back to the informants or the community in general.
For published ethnographies, depending on the financial success of a project,
ethnographers may pay individual informants a percentage of their earnings or
donate a portion of the money to a charity or organization within the community.
For profitable as well as unprofitable projects, ethnographers’ publications serve
to bring about awareness of a specific problem in a community, produce a call for
action, or attempt to rid the general public of false beliefs concerning a specific
culture. In light of The Road to Wigan Pier, how does Orwell or his work give back
to the working class communities?

Considering the financial success of Orwell’s publication, one would assume
that he provided financial compensation to his contributors. Rodden and Rossi
comment on the money and fame Orwell reaped as result of publishing the book:
“The Road to Wigan Pier was published in March 1937 and eventually sold more
than 40,000 copies. Including his advance of £50, Orwell made more money from
The Road to Wigan Pier (£549) than from all his past writings. It made Orwell well
known in political and literary circles in England” (56). Despite Orwell’s fame and
money, there is no evidence to indicate that Orwell paid any of his informants.
As mentioned above, Orwell even failed to send copies of his published work to
his working class informants.

Yet perhaps Orwell contributed to the working class community in other ways,
and while temporarily living and interacting with the working class, he physically
provided a helping hand to those in need. The evidence is limited. In his diary
on March 23, Orwell describes a Maplewood slum area where residents, behind
in their rent payments, are being forced to leave. Interspersed throughout his
descriptions of the slums, Orwell points out the desperate looks on the residents’
faces: “In the first one old father, out of work of course, obviously horribly bewil-
dered by his notice to quit after 22 years of tenancy and turning anxiously to F.
and me with some idea that we could help him” (Diary 78). Even the children
look to Orwell to help them in some way. However, in the end, Orwell just gives
them a piece of advice: “I told them the landlord was only bluffing and to hold
their ground and if he threatened taking it to court to threaten in return to sue
him of lack of repairs. I hope I did the right thing” (Diary 78). Being an outsider,
Orwell is not acquainted with disputes between landlords and tenants. He does
not know if landlords are actually deceiving the tenants and whether the working
class tenants are ever able to win cases on the basis of living in unfit dwellings. With
so many slums and unkempt houses in existence, it seems doubtful that courts
would readily side with the tenants. Aside from the court’s decisions, Hamilton
questions whether it even occurred to Orwell to assist those whose poverty and
circumstance served as the source of his book: “He does not seem even to have
thought of doing so. As usefully as anything in Wigan Pier itself, this diary entry
demonstrates the extent to which Orwell’s impartiality took strength from his

148 K. L. CrAWLEy

impersonality” (61). Orwell’s detachment prevented him from being moved by
the circumstances of the people and offering money or a helping hand.

Regardless of his detachment, Orwell uses his book as a vehicle for giving back
to the community by producing an awareness of the working class’s living condi-
tions. Orwell’s ugly descriptions force past and present readers to understand the
level of poverty that existed in the 1930s. His depiction of caravans, consisting of
single decker buses, paints a vivid picture in the reader’s mind: “One, for instance,
measuring fourteen feet long, had seven people in it – seven people in about 450
cubic feet of space; which is to say that each person had for his entire dwelling a
space a good deal smaller than one compartment of a public lavatory” (Orwell 62).
Orwell ensures that readers understand that the people living in caravans are not
simply travelers or single men; the caravan colonies are the permanent residence
of “thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of families” (The Road 61).

Besides raising an awareness of working class living conditions, Orwell discred-
its false beliefs about the working class. As mentioned earlier, Orwell emphasizes
the overpowering odors of lower class homes to address middle and upper class
members’ beliefs about the lower class’s hygiene: “It is a pity that those who ide-
alise the working class so often think it necessary to praise every working-class
characteristic and therefore to pretend that dirtiness is somehow meritorious in
itself ” (The Road 130). For the middle and upper classes, the dirtiness of the lower
class appears to be natural. They believe that lower class people are dirty simply
because they want to be. In reality, as Orwell illustrates in the chapters on mining
communities, the tiny houses do not have enough “room to have a proper bath”
(The Road 38). Acknowledging those who persist in this belief, Orwell counters
this false belief with evidence related to pit baths: “Moreover the pithead baths,
where they exist, are paid for wholly or partly by the miners themselves, out of
the Miners’ Welfare Fund” (The Road 38). Miners’ willingness to contribute to the
Miners’ Welfare Fund to have pithead baths truly shows their desire to be clean.
Landlords and employers simply do not provide the resources for the lower class
to bathe. Orwell clearly sends the message that if the lower class had bathing
facilities, they would use them.

Another myth that Orwell uncovers concerns the Means Test. Many believe
that the Means Test serves as a helpful tool for determining whether an individual
should receive financial assistance from the government. However, Orwell shows
readers that the Means Test actually harms families, specifically elderly and dis-
abled family members. The elderly and disabled who are unable to work and pay
their rent are often forced to leave their homes. While it seems logical that they
would simply live with other family members, the Means Test prevents adult chil-
dren from caring for their aging or disabled relatives. Orwell explains, “Under the
Means Test, however, he counts as a ‘lodger’ and if he stays at home his children’s
dole will be docked. So, perhaps at seventy or seventy-five years of age, he has
to turn out into lodgings, handing his pension over to the lodging-house keeper
and existing on the verge of starvation” (The Road 79). Orwell tugs on readers’

PrOsE sTudIEs 149

heartstrings by highlighting the fact that the Means Test separates families. As a
result, the elderly suffer in their last years of life when they are forced to live in a
crowded, unkempt lodging house, possibly a house closely akin to the Brookers’
boardinghouse.

In addition to uncovering false beliefs, Orwell’s work offers a call for action.
To combat Fascism and promote Socialism, Orwell calls for middle class Britons,
who see themselves as different from the working class, to recognize that working
and middle classes “are being robbed and bullied by the same system” (The Road
226). If the middle class does not recognize its oppressed state, Orwell foresees the
following consequence: “It is quite easy to imagine a middle class crushed down
to the worst depths of poverty and still remaining bitterly anti-working class in
sentiment; this being, of course, a ready-made Fascist Party” (The Road 226).
Like the upper class, many members of the middle class possess an education,
manners, dress, and speech which set them apart from the working class. Despite
the differences between the working class and the middle class, social changes or
difficult economic times can easily force middle class members with low incomes
into the working class. As Orwell points out, the middle class will continue to cling
to their positions and identify with their oppressors, which will in turn open the
door for Fascism. His book gives back to the community, for his call for action
encourages the oppressed to join forces in an effort to stop Fascism.

After viewing Orwell’s approach to producing an ethnographic text, it is worth-
while to return to Pearce’s question concerning the usefulness of Orwell’s text.
The Road to Wigan Pier ignites interesting discussions on the definition of work-
ing class writing by posing the following questions: Can middle and upper class
authors paint an accurate picture of working-class life? Is it possible for a middle or
upper class writer’s interactions with the working class to serve as the ingredients
for shaping a story about working-class life? Will they simply pity or patronize the
working classes with an exaggerated depiction of their lives? The aforementioned
questions illustrate the existing struggle to define working-class writing. Must
writers be members of the lower classes in order for their works to be considered
working class? Should the definition of working class writing be expanded to
include works about the lower class written by middle and upper class authors?

When scholars debate whether middle class and upper class writers’ works
should be included in the British working-class literary canon, their debate centers
on questions of credibility. Ethnography provides a pathway for nonworking-class
writers to garner credibility. As mentioned in the introduction, due to the fact
that ethnographic techniques were relatively new in Britain in 1930s, Orwell’s
text serves as an early example of ethnography. Students can easily see how eth-
nographic texts and techniques have evolved over the years. While The Road to
Wigan Pier does not function as a model for today’s ethnographers, its strengths

150 K. L. CrAWLEy

and weaknesses prompt productive discussions that lead ethnographers to ques-
tion their own approaches in terms of gaining access to a subculture, presenting
their research in an accurate manner, presenting their informants, considering
their positionality in the text, and giving back to their informants.

Some may argue that other ethnographic texts which are less problematic than
Orwell’s work should be studied. In reality, however, all ethnographic texts possess
flaws, for “[c]ontemporary field work doesn’t claim to be a totally objective social
science” (Chiseri-Strater and Sunstein 40). Orwell’s embellished descriptions and
disturbing political views seem problematic to today’s critics and illustrate the
difficulty of producing an objective text. Therefore, it is important to recognize
Orwell’s work as an early experimental ethnographic study. His portrait of work-
ing class life and his efforts to uncover false beliefs serve the purpose of making a
meaningful contribution to ethnographic studies, for his ethnographic text oper-
ates as a vehicle for social change. The Road to Wigan Pier brought Wigan Pier as
well as other poor communities to the public’s attention and prompted discussions
about the lives of working class people.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Kristy Liles Crawley, a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro,
teaches in the English Department at Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-
Salem. Forsyth Technical Community College, 2100 Silas Creek Parkway, Winston-Salem, NC
27103, USA. [email: kcrawley@forsythtech.edu]

Brockway, A. Fenner. Hungry England. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1932. Print.
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New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. Print.
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427–46. Print.
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New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971. 53–61. Print.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/res/hgw014

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Hoggart, Richard. “George Orwell and ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’.” Critical Quarterly. 7.1 (1965):
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1972. Print.

______. The Road to Wigan Pier Diary. George Orwell Diaries. Ed. Peter Davison. New York:
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Pearce, Robert. “Revisiting Orwell’s Wigan Pier.” History: The Journal of the Historical Association
82.267 (1997): 410–428. Print.

Rae, Patricia. “Orwell’s Heart of Darkness: The Road to Wigan Pier as Modernist Anthropology.”
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• Abstract

Fieldworking
Representation of the other
Representation of the self
Giving back
Concluding remarks
Disclosure statement
Notes on contributor
References